Beau (In the Company of Snipers Book 18)

by Irish Winters

  But by then, there was nothing to see. Canting his head, he listened for heavy breathing, but only heard McKenna’s soft sobs from the back room. Jesus! Montego had gotten away.

  Frustrated, Beau retraced his steps and slammed the bedroom door he’d burst through just minutes earlier. With his back to that door, he breathed hard, filled with enough piss and vinegar to extinguish the whole mother-fuckin’—

  “B-Beau?” McKenna asked plaintively. “Is… is that really you?”

  He took one step forward, when he stepped on something round and damned near fell on his ass. The witch left her flashlight behind. Beau flicked it on and—

  Holy Jesus. The sight spread on the bed before him left him speechless. So much blood. Still armed, he flew to McKenna’s side. “What the fuck did she do to you?”

  “H-help me,” McKenna cried, her eyes bright with fear even as she kept her chin up like she didn’t want to look at him. He didn’t blame her. He got that a lot.

  But as she stared at the wall above her headboard… Shit. He saw it then. Them. The thinnest wires, more like fishing lines than wires, held McKenna fast to the mattress. One ran across her hips, another just under her breasts, and yet another looped around her neck. She wasn’t afraid of him. She plain couldn’t move. What the fuck, indeed.

  Unsheathing the knife from his boot, Beau made quick work of the wires. Then—son-of-a-bitch! Very gently, he released the cruel clamps crushing McKenna’s tiny hands and holding her arms in place. Montego was one sick piece of work.

  “Ow, ow, ow,” McKenna cried, her tone rapping higher as she lowered her arms and rubbed her palms even while blood trickled from the thin slice on her neck. “That h-h-hurts. It st-stings.”

  He bent over her, his thumbs pressing into her palms to get her circulation flowing again. “It’s just the blood rushing back into your muscles and veins where it belongs. I promise. The pain will fade. You’re a doctor. You know that.”

  “I do, b-b-but…” Shivers racked her slender body, sending her long legs bouncing on the mattress. “Hurts, Beau. Everything hurts.”

  “Don’t move,” he told her, needing to pack her wounds before she bled to death.

  But did she listen? Uh-uh. Trembling and in obvious shock, she curled her quivering body into his. Into him. Him. The biggest loser in the universe. The wannabe. The forever castaway and the never good enough. And then she… oh Jesus, she cried. In his arms. Like a scared little girl. She pushed her nose into the wrinkles of his sweaty shirt and she wept.

  What a powerful sensation to be so—trusted. Beau honestly didn’t know what to do. He had no experience dealing with women as elegant or as smart as this lady. As dainty. He’d never dared. Street trash slummed with other street trash, never anyone better. They didn’t social climb, and if they wanted to live, they stayed clear of decent folks. They weren’t worthy or smart enough to know how to move from point A in the invisible castes of American society, up on the ladder of success to point B. Yet his arms seemed to know instinctively what to do. His injured hand rose above its pain, that same forearm pressing her into him, pulling her close to where she seemed determined to go. Against his chest. Against his heart.

  His shoulders hunched over her like a gargoyle shielding a precious jewel from the evil world. His heart physically hurt as the tiniest tendrils of warmth trickled within it, as if the stone creature that he was could suddenly grow veins and chambers and—all the cardiac stuff.

  “I’ve got you, baby,” he murmured hoarsely, because that was what he’d said in the past, and he had no idea what else to say to a trembling, falling apart woman. Yet even as he still gripped his pistol in his free hand, his all-male body reacted to the feminine body it encased. Caging McKenna inside its tough, protective sinews and larger male bones. Shielding her from danger within its callused layers of skin and muscle. Its scars. This he knew how to do. Protect and serve. Rescue. Save.

  Inexplicably, the tip of his nose dipped into the sweaty curls at the crown of her trembling head. His eardrums zeroed in on the rapid panting from her lips, and the throbbing beat of her pulse. Her panic felt like a flock of hummingbirds against his chest. His lips moved as his tongue uttered words he’d said before. “I’ve got you, baby. You’re safe with me.”

  “I... I know,” McKenna whimpered as she flattened her nose into his shirt, bleeding all over him. Drenching him. Blessing him.

  You know? Honored beyond all earthly reason, Beau set his pistol on the mattress beside her rump, where he could reach it quickly. Digging into his jeans pocket, he palmed the burner phone he’d bought solely to avoid his employer. It was time to come clean.

  Guess Marcus would be driving home alone tonight.

  The number Beau dialed rang once. Beau didn’t wait for his employer to speak before he told Alex Stewart, “I need your help.”

  Then, because he’d left Marcus unprotected, Beau tucked McKenna into her pillows. “There’s something I’ve got to do. Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”

  “But—”

  To calm her fear, he did something crazy. Beau kissed McKenna’s sweaty forehead as if she were a little girl. “Trust me,” he told her quietly. “You’re safe now, Dr. Fitz, but I have to make sure my cabbie’s safe, too.”

  “Oh,” was all she whispered.

  Beau had never run so hard or so fast in all his life. Out to the front of the building he hurried, where Marcus—thank you, Jesus—sat patiently waiting. It took seconds to make good on his promise to over-compensate his friend, but Beau needed the man gone and safely on his way home. Then, as if Satan were breathing down his neck, Beau ran back into the house. To McKenna. Murmuring all the way, “Hurry, Alex. Damn you, hurry!”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Alex couldn’t have been more surprised when his cell rang. For the first time since Beau Jennings had joined The TEAM, he’d reached out. But instead of running to his wayward agent’s rescue, Alex sent the pissed off agent who lived nearest McKenna’s apartment, the one who’d spent all afternoon scouring the county looking for her and blaming himself for losing her.

  But by the time Maverick arrived back with two belligerents who lacked the sense the good Lord gave them, both Kelsey and Libby Houston were up, and Alex was beyond pissed. His pig-headed junior agent had a butt-reaming coming. Beau would’ve gotten it the moment he’d staggered through the door, if not for the bloody woman curled inside his arms. And the fact that Kelsey and Libby took over before Alex could growl.

  As fast as they could, the two anxious women ushered Beau and the sad lady in his arms into the ground level guestroom already prepared for them. Kelsey had the nerve to close the door in Alex’s face. Not like that would’ve stopped him. But Maverick did.

  “Boss, stop. He can’t take it right now. Trust me. Beau’s on his last legs. Did you get a good look at him?”

  “I don’t give a shit what he looks like. He’s fired!”

  “You don’t mean that. You’re just mad.”

  “Want to bet?” Alex barked. “What I don’t need is someone who’s too stubborn to listen, working for me. That’s not how my TEAM works, damn it!”

  Maverick nodded. “Understood, but Beau did exactly what we would’ve done. He tracked Montego. He would’ve had her if not for McKenna’s injuries. I can’t believe I’m defending him, but it’s obvious he’s injured, and he’s just been in the fight of his life. Whoever he tangled with beat the shit out of him. You got a beer?”

  Alex shot Maverick a death glare at that obvious segue. But he also rolled the tweak out of his neck, backed off, and let this come-to-Jesus meeting slide. For now.

  “So talk,” he ordered as he opened his bar, handed Maverick a frosty Sam Adams Lager from the fridge, and poured himself a Jameson. He needed fire in his gut. To hell with the ice. He knocked that shot back, then poured another, still breathing fire and brimstone, and pissed at his stiff-necked junior agent who had more balls than brains.

&nb
sp; Maverick quenched his thirst before he sank into the leather couch in Alex’s expansive front room, set the dripping long neck on his knee, and blew out an exasperated sigh. “To tell you the truth, I wanted to kick his ass too, only…” His cowboy hat hit the end table. He’d already removed it the moment he’d seen the women. That was Maverick to a T. Politely reserved. Usually quiet. Prone to let others take the lead. Just don’t piss him off.

  Alex drained the second shot and poured another before he took the matching leather chair across from Maverick. “Only what?”

  “He’s hurting, Boss, and not just from that missing pinkie. Gabe noticed it at the hospital. We talked while Beau slept, and I have to agree. Something’s eating him, and it’s not just what Montego took. What do we really know about Beau? Why the hell’s he ready to fight us all the time? Hell, we should be the family he relies on. He’s got nobody else. What do you know that we don’t?”

  “He fights because he’s Army and the rest of us are mostly Marines,” Alex bit out, though he knew interdepartmental competition had nothing to do with Beau’s nasty level of disdain. It wasn’t just the guys and gals, the former sailors and jarheads on The TEAM he hated. Since the moment Alex had met Beau and hired him, he’d seemed pissed off at the entire world.

  “Yeah, well…” Maverick’s gaze stayed on his bottle. “That’s not what Gabe thinks.”

  “Then what? PTSD? Drugs?” Alex snapped. “What’s got his ass wound so tight around the axle that he can’t be civil for one son-of-a-bitchin’ day of his life?” Alex glared at the Jameson across the room, wishing he’d brought the bottle with him.

  Both Maverick’s shoulders lifted. “I was hoping you could tell me. But Gabe says Beau reminds him of, umm, me,” he said, more to his bottle than to his boss.

  Well, son-of-a-bitch. That knocked Alex down a peg. Maverick was another one of those guilty survivors. Sorry that they’d lived. Wishing at some deep, dark level, they hadn’t. But surviving and coping with what they’d lost—make that who they’d lost—every day. Just like Alex. Just like Kelsey and Mark and Zack and most every other man and woman he’d ever hired. That was The TEAM for you, a weary bunch of guilty survivors who couldn’t go back in time to change one damned thing.

  Alex drew in a long, slow breath. Let it fill his lungs. Let it clear his head. Then let his temper go with one deliberate exhalation. He was tired of fighting the same demons. But he also knew there was a good man beneath the rancor Beau so quickly displayed. A lost man, maybe. One possibly headed in the wrong direction. But good. Else Alex would’ve told him to pound sand instead of signing him.

  Guys and gals like Beau often came from tough beginnings. After serving, often in combat, they came to Alex as scarred, edgy warriors. Women and men who’d seen too much, and some who’d lost too much. Like Maverick.

  There was a time he’d walked away from The TEAM. He’d just stood up at his desk one morning and quit without any more notice than, “I’ve had enough.” He’d ended up in Wyoming before he’d gotten his head straight. That was what proud men who lost their baby brother in war did sometimes. They struggled back the only way they knew how. Footstep by footstep. Mile by mile. If it took the soles off a hundred pairs of boots, so be it.

  Okay, then.

  Alex blew out another sigh. “I only know what Beau divulged on his personnel record. It wasn’t much, and I don’t share personal information.” But I do read it.

  “I know, and I’m not asking you to,” Maverick agreed. “I’m just tired of knocking heads with him every time we work together. He’s got a burr under his saddle I can’t seem to reach. He’s like a stallion that can’t stand the rope, not even a halter. China noticed it at the last picnic. He was new to The TEAM, but he sat on the lawn with his beer, away from every one of us. Like a leper. When she tried to talk to him, he up and walked away without so much as a ‘Go to hell, leave me alone.’”

  “He’ll come around. Give him time,” said the man who’d just threatened to fire Beau.

  “I don’t know that, Boss, and neither do you.” Maverick upended the lager and finished it off before he said, “Have you seen how he treats Izza? If Connor doesn’t rip his head off one of these days, I will.”

  “What about Izza?”

  Agent Isabella Ramos, Izza for short, aka Mrs. Connor Maher, as in Agent Connor Maher’s wife. An affable former Marine who adored his wife and lived to tease her, Connor was by far the most lethal man on The TEAM, especially when it came to protecting his wife and family. He cold-bloodedly annihilated the men who’d hurt her a couple years back. Beau had better not rattle that beehive because Connor would end him.

  “He can’t look at her without biting her head off. And he’s downright demeaning when he talks to her. Treats her like she’s stupid. I don’t know, Boss. Some guys come back from war, but they don’t really, know what I mean?”

  “Like you,” Alex stated flatly. “You had a damned rough time settling back into civilian life.”

  Maverick kept his gaze on the empty bottle at his knee. “That’s what’s got me worried. I’ll tell you something I’m not proud of. But you have no idea how close I came to offing myself after Darrell died like he did.”

  Maverick stuck one long, lean leg out, and Alex knew he’d rather be kicking the shit out of something instead of sitting in his living room chatting. So he said what Kelsey always told him. Because it was true. Painful to hear, and most days, impossible to do. But still true. “The hardest person to forgive is always ourself.”

  By then, Alex couldn’t look Maverick in the eye, either. Too many memories flooded back. His pretty first wife, Sara. Abby, the firstborn daughter he’d always adore. The dearest lives he’d lost, and the ones he hadn’t been there to protect when they’d needed him most. The struggle he still wrestled with. There were moments he truly hated himself for not being behind the wheel when it happened. Sara would still be alive, if he’d been driving. Maybe Abby, too. He’d be that name on the headstone in his family plot. Not them. Instead…

  Jumping to his feet, he set his empty glass on the edge of the bar, not drinking himself into a stupor like he did back then. He had Kelsey now, and things were different. She loved him more than he deserved, and he damned well knew it. Maybe he was still the same jackass he ever was, but life was a blessing. Most days.

  “That’s the problem.” Maverick looked at Alex then. “I’m not sure Beau thinks he’s got that kind of time. I think he’s got a death wish, Boss. Else why did he go back to Congressman Ringer’s all by himself? Today when he’d just left the hospital? Why didn’t he wait until he had backup? Why’d he track McKenna down after he found nothing at Ringer’s but police tape and misery? That’s what he’s been doing all night. He told me. Jesus, if he hadn’t had his pistols with him, we could’ve lost him and McKenna.”

  Alex cocked his head. “But we didn’t. She’s alive because Beau took a chance and—”

  “And he could have gotten them both killed!”

  “True, but…”

  “No buts, Boss!” Maverick slammed his empty bottle on the coffee table. “He’s not a team player. He’s going to get someone killed. Himself! Beau needs help, an intervention, or… or… something.”

  “Like you?” Alex asked thoughtfully. “You beat the shit out of, who was it, Landon? Right in the office?”

  Now it was Maverick’s turn to growl. “That was different. What a lying sack of—”

  “It’s not different. In fact…” Alex leaned forward, his elbows to his knees, seeing what he should’ve seen all along. Just like Beau, Maverick was still hurting. Something must’ve stirred up all those painful memories. “How long’s it been?” he asked, though he damned well knew.

  Maverick took his time answering, his belly expanding, then deflating with one long, miserable breath. “Four years,” he said quietly. “Darrell died exactly four years ago on the day I flew home from Indonesia. The flight took us over India and Afgh
anistan. I wasn’t expecting that. Not then. Not… that.”

  Alex cleared his throat, stiffened his spine, and he did what he did best. “How about you let me take care of what’s going on between Beau and Izza. For now, keep Beau and his doctor friend at your place. Make sure he stays put long enough that he doesn’t lose that finger, got it?”

  If looks could kill...

  “Me?” Maverick spat, his nose wrinkled in disgust. “You want me to ride herd on that ass?”

  “Why not? You train horses, don’t you?”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Beau sucked in his gut instead of snapping at Kelsey, acutely aware that he was so damned out of his element. The second he’d cleared the door to this elegant guest bedroom, he knew he was in the wrong place, the wrong man for the job. Obediently, he’d settled McKenna onto the queen-sized bed as Libby Houston requested. But when he’d headed for the door and the fast way out, Kelsey had stopped him with a gentle hand in the middle of his chest. He’d come to a dead halt because, well, this was Kelsey, and she was touching him, and—yeah. That slender clean hand of hers could stop a hurricane.

  “Sit,” she’d told him, then pushed until his legs hit the edge of the other queen-sized bed in the room.

  He had no choice, so he sat. What else could he do? He liked Kelsey. The problem was him, not her. Never her.

  “Let me look at that poor face,” she said as she dipped a clean white cloth into the basin on the nightstand between the beds. “Oh, my. You’re running a fever, Beau. You should be in bed.”

  “No, ma’am. I’m fine.” He didn’t flinch when she ran the rag over his forehead and dabbed at the claw marks across his nose and down one cheek. She applied something that stung, then instantly turned cold to his bloodied brow.

  “Put your chin up,” she told him when, with two gentle fingers under his chin, she positioned his face into the light. “You’re not fine. You’re tired and you’re sick. I can see it in your eyes.”